Adtran NETVANTA 2300 BRANCH OFFICE VPN ( 4200366L1#10 )

Rating:
Summary: Other products are cheaper & better
Review: This is a similar product to the NetVanta 2050 so the same warnings about endless upgrades adding to price and problems with the claims of the sales lit. vs. reality also apply.

We chose the AdTran NetVanta 2050 because we were looking for a dedicated router/bridge that would act as a firewall and provide IPvSec VPN access to our Windows network from the Internet. First off, it can't work as a bridge, it's only a router.

Secondly, the information on the AdTran Web site is at best misleading, or completely lacking, in such a way as to be misleading. For example, nowhere did it state that the unit does NOT come with VPN support, but that you need to purchase that separately, at about $170. This gets you a serial number which lets you download the "enhanced" firmware from their confusing Web site. So while the $260 price looked attractive, we ended up spending $430 to get firewall & VPN capabilities, and there's a lot of products out there that will do both out of the box for 1/3 or less the price.

Even if you decide to get the VPN capabilities, you'll then need to buy a separate AdTran Windows VPN client at $125 per 5 users, because it won't work with the VPN facilities built into Windows. And that client will just get packets between your remote PC and internal network, it doesn't help you autheticate to a Windows domain, making it difficult for anyone but a Power User to access Windows-based resources.

If you're willing to spend that much to buy two units to create a IPvSec VPN tunnel from one office location to another, this product would be fine, but again, there's better/cheaper products which will do same. But be warned that it only provides routing, not bridging, so if you're in a Windows environment, all it will do is share packets between two separate sites; you're stuck figuring out how to authenticate against separate Windows domains to access resources.

As a firewall, it doesn't offer any features beyond what other, less-expensive routers offer. As a VPN remote-access unit, it's useless compared to a number of Linksys and Cisco products designed to do that. And after reading tech/sales claims as to what it can do, only to keep finding out you need to keep purchasing add-ons to get that functionality is insulting and unethical.

Strengths:

Not many. The Web-based configuration support is good, but no better than competitors' products. Its price is not competitive nor does it offer the functionality that's really needed in most situations. 10 years ago this would have been a great product, today it's a dinosaur.

(sarcasm on)
If you like wasting time, having to buy a lot of extras (and wait for them) and being really frustrated and unable to get anything working, then waiting around for hours for support call-backs, then this baby is for you. (sarcasm off)

Weaknesses:

To get all the functionality claimed in their sales information, you'll end up spending 2-4x the base price.

If you upgrade the firmware, you'll have to reset it to Factory Defaults and reconfigure it to get it working.

The VPN support for remote clients is simply the ability to route packets once you pay extra for their VPN firmware *and* however many lincenses for their VPN client software, and it still leaves you without an easy way to authenticate to Windows domains.

Their support makes you jump through a lot of hoops to prove you own the product and whatever upgrades before they'll stick you on a list to wait around for a call-back Their Web site is practically useless and the documentation poor and misleading.

After all our problem and calls/email to support, which was difficult, their "follow-up" on the support was to try and sell us three different "upgrade" and "support" services at a yearly fee! For a product that others make, you buy, plug in, and forget about. Support for a firewall/VPN router? Why? It should work or shouldn't.

This is a 1990 product in a 2004 world run by a company whose sales/marketing department is 10x bigger than their engineering dept.

Similar Products Used:

Look at anything by Linksys, Cisco or 3Com, and you'll find something that actually does what it claims without having to spend 2-4x the money on "upgrades" which still leave you with a product that doesn't solve today's products.

I'll avoid AdTran at all costs in the future. Stay away!